Guest Opinion: Rising seas put landmarks at risk

Wednesday

Jul 2, 2014 at 2:54 PM

As July 4th approaches, we're thinking about fireworks and hotdogs, sure … but we're also pre-occupied with the alarming threat climate change impacts — especially coastal flooding — pose to some of the places that are central to our history and identity as an independent nation. From sea to rising sea, many of the United States' most iconic landmarks and historic sites — places that will be in millions of people's travel plans this summer — are at growing risk.

Kate Cell

As July 4th approaches, we’re thinking about fireworks and hotdogs, sure … but we’re also pre-occupied with the alarming threat climate change impacts — especially coastal flooding — pose to some of the places that are central to our history and identity as an independent nation. From sea to rising sea, many of the United States’ most iconic landmarks and historic sites — places that will be in millions of people’s travel plans this summer — are at growing risk.

According to a recent report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, “National Landmarks at Risk,” Faneuil Hall, which is a stop on Boston’s Freedom Trail and among the nation’s best-preserved historic structures, is one such landmark. Ironically, merchant Peter Faneuil, who built this so-called “Cradle of Liberty” at his own expense, amassed much of his wealth through the slave trade. While the current building dates from 1806, when Charles Bulfinch enlarged Faneuil Hall and moved the cupola, it was first built as a commercial center in 1742 and located on the site of a small cove, which was filled in to accommodate the structure in an area called Dock Square. Over the years, Boston has grown in much this way — through a practice of “wharfing out,” or constructing wharves and then filling them in. Consequently, Faneuil Hall is now a little more than a quarter-mile west of the present shoreline.

Even this far inland, Faneuil Hall and the Blackstone Block are vulnerable, lying within the city’s 100-year tidal flood zone. Since official tidal records began in Boston in 1921, extreme high tides — more than three and a half feet above the average high tide — have occurred 20 times, and half of those tides took place within the past 10 years. As a result, several times a year exceptionally high tides already flood parts of the nineteenth-century warehouse neighborhoods around Fort Point Channel and the historic Long and Central wharves.

The public meeting space on the original second floor is what gives Faneuil Hall its fame. Here, Samuel Adams and other Sons of Liberty held public meetings and planned protests against such British colonial policies as the Stamp Act. It is also the site of the initial meeting about the Tea Act, which prompted the Boston Tea Party.

During the winters of 2013 and 2014, nor’easters caused storm tides to rise even higher than those from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 — one rose a foot higher. Yet so far Boston has been lucky, as these storm surges have all coincided with low tides. If the worst of the storm surges had hit at high tide, major flooding could have occurred, inundating much of the waterfront, past Faneuil Hall up to City Hall, and the part of the North End where Paul Revere began his ride.

The National Landmarks at Risk report names some 30 treasured places across the country that are at risk due to sea level rise, floods, and more frequent and larger wildfires. And if these historic and cultural sites are at risk, so are many of our neighborhoods. Given the scale of the problem and the cultural value of the places at risk, it is not enough merely to plan for change and expect to adapt. We must begin now to prepare ourselves to face worsening climate impacts; climate resilience must become a national priority; and we must allocate the necessary resources.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ranked Boston the eighth-highest metropolitan area worldwide in expected economic losses, estimated at $237 million per year between now and 2050, due to coastal flooding. The city of Boston is highly aware of the dangers posed by sea level rise and heavier rains, and is proactively planning resilience strategies. Boston has improved its emergency warning systems for flooding, high winds, and winter storms. For example, all new municipal construction must include both an evaluation of climate risks through the year 2050 and a description of ways to avoid, minimize, or mitigate those risks.

The city of Boston and the commonwealth are national leaders both in reducing the carbon pollution that causes global warming, and in preparing for those impacts which unfortunately are now inevitable. But this problem is much too big for one city or state to confront alone. We need strong federal policy to minimize the risks by quickly reducing the carbon emissions that cause global warming if we want to ensure that our Independence Day celebrations can take place at some of our most treasured monuments and iconic historic sites for generations to come.

Kate Cell, of Shutesbury, is a senior campaign organizer for the Climate Impacts Initiative at the Union of Concerned Scientists. She is one of the authors of the UCS report, “National Landmarks At Risk: How Rising Seas, Floods and Wildfires are Threatening the United States’ Most Cherished Historic Sites.”